Fuck Folk - Again!

According to BBC2's Culture Show, the new musical rage is using medieval musical instruments to play modern folk. Excuse me whilst I lie down for a minute! This is just such an exciting development! Actually, I seem to recall that this interest in old musical instruments has been around for a while. Indeed, former Deep Purple and Rainbow axeman Ritchie Blackmore has apparently abandoned his electric guitar for a lute, tights and a pixie hat. A few years ago he even released an album (the title of which I've thankfully forgotten), on which, accompanied by Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson and his flute, he belted out some medieval-type folk bollocks. It seems obvious to me that what's needed here is some kind of folk/pop crossover, performed with archaic instruments. Maybe Blackmore and Anderson could get a minstrel band together and perform the collected hits of Britney Spears using only instruments made before 1423. All in the style of folk ballads. Trust me, it'd be a hit. Especially if you could get some half-witted radio DJ to give it a bit of airplay.

Such a crossover could open the floodgates for other pieces of musical experimentation. Perhaps Lily Allen could borrow some of the costumes from her old man's Robin Hood TV series and show that nice middle-class girls can master the language of the thirteenth century just as well as they can that of the street. She could ponce about in one of those medieval babe's gowns singing about how the sheriff has taken away the key to her chastity belt, or something. Even better, that twat from the Ordinary Boys - you know, the one who married that vacuous slapper who won Celebrity Big Brother the other year - could be persuaded to do an olde English minstrel song about the hazards of being a village idiot. Hopefully there'd be a video with him in the village stocks having shit thrown at him. At least, we'd tell him that it was for a video...

Actually, the crossover I've always wanted to see is Motorhead doing an album of George Formby covers. The thought of Lemmy playing the electric banjo whilst banging out "Oh Mr Wu, whatever should I do?" or "When I'm cleaning windows" never fails to make me smile. I can just see him head-banging away, hair flying all over the place, shouting "Turned out nice again". He'd probably get into the 1940s period spirit by wearing a German coal-scuttle helmet and Iron Cross. Not that he's a Nazi, of course. But he does have a huge collection of WWII Nazi memorabilia. It's just a hobby. Apparently. (Actually, I once knew a guy who had a huge collection of child pornography. He wasn't a peadophile, of course. It was just a hobby. Or so he told the police when they nicked him. Not that I'm drawing any analogies with Lemmy here. I just mentioned it out of interest. I hope I've cleared that up satisfactorily. Just for legal reasons, of course). But we've strayed from the whole issue of folk music, haven't we? Basically, the point I originally intended to make was simple: no matter how they dress it up, folk is still shit. Fuck folk!